


Reaching

by ABeckoningCat



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 11:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABeckoningCat/pseuds/ABeckoningCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people talk in their sleep, Clint has other habits.  Natasha has to record him in action before he'll believe it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reaching

“This is stupid.”

“ _Shh_.  Where’s the… have you seen the thing?”

 “I’m not helping you.”

“The thing—you know, the THING?”  Natasha made a more emphatic gesture, thumb pressing against the side of her curled hand, and though Clint knew instantly, instinctively, that she was pantomiming a remote control, he patently refused to assist her in its location.  His arms folded, eyes steely, and she sighed as she turned through the couch cushions.  “It’s the size of a dinner plate, how do we keep losing it?”

“What are we looking for?” Tony inquired, strolling from out the common room’s little kitchenette with a coffee mug already tilted to his lips.  “Can I help?  I want to help.”

“Shut up, fuck you, get out of here,” Clint unfolded his arms, pointing a finger at him accusingly.  One corner of Tony’s mouth curled up, badly hidden by the coffee mug.

“Okay, now I  _definitely_  want to help.  What are – Natasha, with the crack addict routine over here, what are you even looking for?”

“The remote for this thing,” she indicated the wall-mounted screen with a broad gesture, and after consulting with it Tony gave her a narrow, confused look.

“You know we have JARVIS for that, right?  JARVIS—?”

_“How can I be of assistance, sir?”_

_“_ I don’t like talking to your robot,” Natasha cut in, but quietly, because some part of her was still concerned about offending the same entity that controlled the temperature of her shower in the morning.  Tony might have actually shuddered.

“He’s not a r… do you even know what a robot is?  Do we have to go over the differences?

“Please don’t make me have this conversation again.”

“Please,” Clint agreed.  “Either of us.”

“I made you a  _chart_ —“

_"Stark_.”

“JARVIS,” he sighed.  “Natasha has a video she’d like to show us—“

“ _Me_ , she’s showing  _me_ ,” Clint reminded him, growing slightly more edgy as he sensed the man was getting ready to dig in his heels.  “You’re not invited.”

“My house, my rules.  Natasha?”

Uncertainly she strode forward, slipping a thumb drive out from one pocket and crouching at the console beneath the television, plugging it into the appropriate port.  JARVIS kindly took over from there, turning on the display and sorting through the available files.

“ _May I assume it’s the recording entitled ‘L-O-L’, Agent Romanoff_."

“Yes, that’s the one.”

Clint sunk miserably into an armchair, head in hands.  “…Jesus Christ…”

“Wait, can I get more coffee?  And popcorn—?”

“ _Shh_ ,” Natasha swatted the air at them, relocating to the couch cushion nearest her partner before sitting forward eagerly.  “Just watch.”

It was entirely impossible for Tony to do anything so laborious as  _just watch_ , however, and though he carried the remains of his coffee to the far end of the couch to enjoy the show, he kept up a running commentary throughout.

“Terrible cinematography.  Terrible,” he pointed out, this as they were treated to a sweeping entrance into Clint Barton’s private quarters. Or, anyway, the quarters temporarily assigned to him until the upper stories of the Tower had been restored and constructed.  It was as if a soldier had moved in to a hotel room, the tasteful modern appointments long since cluttered with hastily-shed black fatigues, duffel bags, disassembled recurves, and any number of arrows.  The engineer leaned forward, frowning.

“What is that?  Is that some sort of sexual machine?”

“It’s a compound bow press.”

“So it’s a sexual machine.”

“ _SHH._ ”

The camera panned around wide, coming back to the bed, where Clint Barton was arranged in a nearly spread-eagle sprawl on his stomach, the broad musculature of his back hashed by little nicks and scars.  He was bare to the waist, where the sheets had been drawn messily across him from hips to knees.  Tony sat up.

“ _Oh._   I didn’t know it was going to be that kind of video.”

“ _Shh_ , shut up,” Natasha hushed. “It’s not what you think.”

“I might need to get Pepper’s approval before I watch the rest of this—“

“I will fucking  _end_  you, just  _shh_.”

The camera went no further, merely wobbling there for a while, watching the man sleep.  Tony had just begun to creep Natasha a  _so-this-is-what-you’re-doing-with-the-technology-I-give-you_ look when she sat up a little straighter, pointing.

“See?  Watch?”

On screen, as if swatting a bothersome fly, the archer’s left hand reached back to flap at his shoulder blade, fingers groping blindly for something.  Tony became more focused, sitting forward curiously as the groping continued.

“What is he doing…?”

“He’s reaching for an arrow.”

“ _I’m not reaching for an arrow,_ ” Clint defended tightly.

“He thinks he’s got his quiver on.”

“ _That is not what that is_.  It’s an itch, my back is itchy, these sheets are, like, a _million_  thread count, I’m not used to it.”

"You’re sleeping on your stomach.”

But Tony was fascinated now, fixated, tilting his head ever-so-slightly as the man’s thick fingertips groped around as if for something specific.  He even encouraged the archer’s on-screen avatar, muttering, “C’mon… no, not that one… not that one…. Ahhh, that’s the one!”

Clint’s sleeping hand seemed to find what it was looking for, a tight pinch between thumb and middle finger as he drew it deliberately back over his shoulder.  Rather than do anything so humiliating as try to nock it on an invisible bow, however, his arm just slumped limply over the edge of the bed as he fell into a deeper sleep.

Tony giggled.  Shamelessly.

“Wait, it gets better,” Natasha started scrambling around for the lost remote again.  “Sometimes he pulls the wrong arrow, and he looks  _so mad_.”

“Okay, I’m done,” Clint stood abruptly, hands up in defense.  “That’s it. No more cameras in my bedroom.  New rule.”

“No no no no no,” Tony pressed his palms together prayerfully, index fingers at his bottom lip as he murmured with sudden and intense focus, “…I need to get cameras in all the rooms.  Every room.  I  _need_  to.”

“Fuck you,” Clint pointed another finger at him deliberately, and then directed it at Natasha. “And also fuck you.  Fuck the both of you.  Forever.”

“Love you, Barton,” she smirked, heaping back against the couch cushions in obvious pleasure.

“Fuck you.”

Tony remained oblivious to this, staring more fixedly at the screen, until he too suddenly stood, creeping nearer to it.

“Hey, wait – what is that?  JARVIS, can you zoom in on the nightstand there?  What is that?  Barton, you don’t wear red.”

Natasha blanched suddenly, sitting forward.

“Wait, what?“

“Are those panties?  Those are red panties.”  The whites of his eyes shone as he reeled a deliberate look back at her.  “Those are  _rumpled_  red panties.”

“JARVIS,” she stood at once, darting for the thumb drive.  “End video.  Stop playing.  Bad robot.”

“Not a robot,” Tony reminded her, leaning into her path to intercept.  This was approximately how Stark ended up in his very first thigh choke, while Clint looked on with arms folded, seeming far more sublime with how the morning was turning out.

“JARVIS, hey.  Can you record this?”

_“With pleasure, sir.”_


End file.
